


Confessional

by vega_voices



Series: Sleeps with Butterflies [31]
Category: CSI
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-17
Updated: 2011-05-17
Packaged: 2017-10-19 18:15:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/203832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vega_voices/pseuds/vega_voices
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“It wasn’t until I took this job that I realized hell is real. But it isn’t fire and brimstone. It’s the monsters out on the street with no care for life. I’m not talking about the idiots who rob someone’s house because they’re out there to outsmart the cops."</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Confessional

_**CSI Fic: Confessional**_  
 **Title:** Confessional  
 **Author:** [](http://vegawriters.livejournal.com/profile)[**vegawriters**](http://vegawriters.livejournal.com/)  
 **Fandom:** CSI  
 **Pairing:** GSR; Hints of Greg and Sara UST but mostly friendship; Hints of Greg/Other Female Character  
 **Rating:** Pg-13  
 **Timeframe:** Directly following season 11 finale. Deals directly with issues addressed in the ep.  
 **A/N:** This takes place within my [Sleeps with Butterflies](http://vega-voices.livejournal.com/tag/sleeps%20with%20butterflies) universe but is self contained. Thank you to [](http://jazminebel.livejournal.com/profile)[**jazminebel**](http://jazminebel.livejournal.com/) and [](http://kittyknighton.livejournal.com/profile)[**kittyknighton**](http://kittyknighton.livejournal.com/) for the beta.

 **Summary:** _“It wasn’t until I took this job that I realized hell is real. But it isn’t fire and brimstone. It’s the monsters out on the street with no care for life. I’m not talking about the idiots who rob someone’s house because they’re out there to outsmart the cops."_

The thud of the bass sent subtle vibrations through the door and Sara paused, the pizza still balanced on her fingertips. Unless he was angry, Greg was no longer the type to blast his music at ear-splitting levels.

Cautious fingers reached out and pressed the doorbell, unsure if he’d even hear over the music. But a moment later, the music dimmed and the door opened; Greg stood there framed by candle light. He was no longer the crazy lab kid with the wild hair who blasted his music in the lab, but standing in the doorway of his upscale warehouse-style condo, dressed in ratty jeans and an old Nine Inch Nails shirt, he seemed somehow locked in time. Like nothing had changed. This case was going to change them, and that realization gnawed at her stomach. For a long moment Greg stared at her, sizing up the peace offering of pizza and beer, and finally stepped back and let her through the door but didn’t hang around to close it behind her. Sara paused just inside and kicked it shut with her foot.

She’d known she’d upset him back in the locker room, when she had been about to open Langston’s case to make sure all three of his flex cuffs were still inside. His “What if it was me?” haunted her. She’d looked into his eyes and told him, her best friend, that she’d still open the case. She’d still check the evidence. She’d meant it then and even now, she still did. And she hated herself for it because it meant that no matter how much she trusted him, she’d still want physical proof above all else.

“Greg …”

He’d walked back through the condo, into his living space. “I was so glad Nick and Warrick found Natalie.”

The words stunned her. “What do you mean?” What the hell was he talking about?

“When you were abducted. When she took you to the desert to die. I was glad they found Natalie because I don’t know if I could have kept my hands off of her. I’d have shoved her out a window because she hurt you. And I know that the investigation would have been tricky and evidence would have been covered up and it still would have been the right thing to do, to shove her through a window. And that’s why when you talk to IA, you’re going to report on what you found. And no,” he turned and stared her down, anticipating her next question, “I didn’t replace the flex cuffs in the kit. I know you were also right to check it and you should have asked me if I replaced them.”

“Greg, if I hadn’t checked it, IA would ask why I didn’t bother to check.” Slowly, Sara walked through the foyer toward the spacious living room. She kicked off her shoes at the stairs down into the sunken area, her toes finding the comfort of the thick area rugs that took the chill from the tile floors. Greg still had not turned on a light, and the room was illuminated only by the candles on different shelves and the eerie blue-green glow from the tropical fish tank. A bright green betta swam through the small school of black skirt tetras and raspberry mollies. She placed the pizza and beer on the glass coffee table and took a seat in the low chair across from his couch. Greg lay on his back, one arm propping up his head, his eyes on a blank spot on the ceiling. Sara waited for him to speak.

“When I was a tech, I processed all kinds of off the book things. It’s a part of how we do things, you know. Evidence disappeared all the time and most of the time it was some dumb clerical error and it never changed the outcome of a case because there was enough to nail the perp.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“But it wasn’t until I got out in the field that I realized sometimes …sometimes we have to make decisions that could change the outcome of a case and sometimes it’s for the better.” He sighed. “Sara, we’re going to have to answer questions we may not have answers to.”

“Greg, there’s what we know happened and what the evidence says happened. We stick to the evidence and the report we signed.”

“Who do you think replaced the cuffs?”

“I don’t want to say anything. I don’t dare. If I do, I’ll have to say something to IA.”

“Is this what it really means to be in law enforcement?”

“Yeah.” Sara shrugged and stared at the flickering candle on the table. “When I was back in San Francisco, my boyfriend threw me around. A lot. I broke arms, ribs, fingers.” She wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know. “Once, my neighbors actually called the cops, which was a joke because my boyfriend was a cop. And through the blood that was dripping down my face, I watched them cover up the scene.” She ran a hand through her hair. “We know, as crims, how to kill people and get away with it. We know it as cops. And sometimes, all it takes to get away with it is to hide one piece of evidence.”

“Hiding that piece of evidence is a criminal offense that can send us to prison.”

“This piece of evidence wasn’t ours to hide, Greg. We always had two people processing the scene. We know how each other works and I’d have known if you were hiding something. You’d have known it if I was.” She wanted a beer but didn’t want to reach to get one. Somehow, the cracking of the seal would change the atmosphere of the room. The song changed, ethereal and hollow.

“I could have done it if it had been you in that closet or on that bed.” Greg turned his head, but he wasn’t looking at her. Instead, he stared at where her hands rested together on her lap. “Even now, Sara. Even now.”

The tone in his voice sliced through her. She had only one regret in her life with Gil, and it was that in the process, Greg had been hurt. She wanted him to fall in love, and she knew he was no longer in love with her, but she also knew that if Gil was to somehow not be there in her life, Greg would be and they would be happy. “Greg …”

He moved his gaze from the thin golden band on her finger to her eyes. “I know what Ray was feeling when he threw Haskell through that banister. I felt it when you left. I felt it when you were abducted. I felt it when that bastard you were dating ages ago cheated on you. I get it.” He closed his eyes. “It wasn’t until I took this job that I realized hell is real. But it isn’t fire and brimstone. It’s the monsters out on the street with no care for life. I’m not talking about the idiots who rob someone’s house because they’re out there to outsmart the cops. I’m talking about the monsters. The killers. The rapists. I don’t know how Catherine does it. How she lets Lindsey out of the house every single day. If she were my daughter, I’d lock her up in a tower.”

“You wouldn’t be any better than the monsters if you did that.”

“I know.” He shook his head and the shadows bounced off the walls. Outside, Vegas was turning into itself in the heat of mid-morning. In Greg’s home, it might have been midnight.

Sara made a decision. “I was raped, Greg. A long time ago.” She sighed, the words tumbling out, her final confession to the man who, other than her husband, knew everything about her. “He came into my bedroom and he pinned me down and it went on and on and on. And I got pregnant from it. I was fifteen and in state custody at that point and they wouldn’t let me have an abortion, so the baby was put into the system and adopted. A few years ago, Catherine and Gil were investigating a drive-by where a civvy was caught in the crossfire. She was eighteen years old …” Sara took a shuddering breath. “My daughter had learned she was adopted and come to Vegas to find me.”

“I didn’t know.”

She could feel him staring in horror at her but she couldn’t meet his eyes, not until the song changed again. “Not a lot of people do. Brass helped keep the paperwork quiet.”

“Did they find the guy?” Bass pounded softly behind them.

“No. But when they do, I’m throwing him through a window and I’ll need you to help me cover it up.” She thought back to the night on the beach, when Gil had come back from Peru. “I’m taking a few weeks this summer when Gil is done in Peru. We’re backpacking through the desert with a friend on a research trek and … we’re also trying to get pregnant.”

“You’re going to be a good mother, Sara.”

“Really? How do you know? You saw that bedroom and the hell that was that house. It could have been the house I grew up in.”

“Nate Haskell was a product of …”

“What? Bad genes? My father hit me and my brother and my mother and my mother stabbed my father to death. Who is to say that violence isn’t a part of people like me and Ray?”

“You aren’t a serial killer, Sara. You aren’t even violent. Some people are just born bad. And some people are good people who are overwhelmed by their emotions.”

“Then it’s a good thing Ray has us, isn’t it?”

Greg smiled softly. “What’s on the pizza?”

“Half cheese, half pepperoni.”

“Still the woman of my dreams.”

Sara chuckled softly; glad the mood in the room had eased and that she had been forgiven. Her eyes fell on the picture he had of his long-time girlfriend on the end table closest to the fish tank. She was a forensic anthropologist who spent her time shuttling from case to case around the world. “How is Dawn doing?”

Greg shrugged. “She’s really tired of travelling and she’s been offered a job teaching at Yale but there aren’t any positions for me out there. She wants the job, it’s a good opportunity for her, but we aren’t in the same place you and Grissom are. So I don’t know how we’re doing. But she’s good, at least.” He sat up and opened the pizza box. Sara cracked beers for both of them and set them next to dinner. They stared at the food for a long moment. “Sara, you can always come to me. With anything. I know you know that, but I had to say it.”

“You too, Greg.” She reached across the coffee table and laced her fingers in his. Once, a night like this might have turned into something more, and for a long minute she wondered what she’d given up by loving Gil and not Greg. It wasn’t a sense of regret, just a sense of melancholy. She wouldn’t give up her best friend for anything, and she loved her husband with all her soul, but there were moments, when she let herself wonder what might have been. Around them, the music still pulsed, a slower, more sensual beat.

“If you hadn’t loved Grissom…” he shook his head. “I’m not going there tonight.” But the fingers of his free hand tucked back her hair and stroked her cheek. Sara smiled and let the touch linger for a moment before pulling away and handing him a beer.

~fin~


End file.
